Oscar Politics: Should Kate Winslet Have Won for ‘Titanic’?

Kate WInslet in her Oscar-nominated role in 'Titanic.' Photo: TitanicUniverse.com

As the 2011 Oscars draw near, Entertainment Weekly has come up with a gallery on the 10 Deserving Winners (Who Should Have Won Sooner). Since there’s quite a bit of politics with a winner, sometimes the voters choose an actor to make up for not not doing so for a previous, more deserving movie role.

The slideshow lists Denzel Washington and Martin Scorcese. Washington won Best Actor for Training Day even though he should have won for earlier films. The same with Scorcese, who received a statuette for The Departed when the Academy failed to award him for his other works like Goodfellas.

It even explained to me why director Roman Polanski won for The Pianist—sort of. I’d never seen the movie, but Polanski was already under scrutiny for raping a girl—and they give him an award? Apparently, it was because he, too, should have gotten his statuette years earlier for Rosemary’s Baby.

One surprise to me though, is the writer says that Kate Winslet should have had a victory with Titanic, not The Reader. Her other Oscar-nominated films are Sense and Sensibility, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Children, and Iris. I haven’t watched Sense and Sensibility or Iris, but of those I have seen, I would say her performance stood out in The Reader, not necessarily Titanic. (Either way, The Reader is a great movie. Watch it!)

Is a re-watch in order? I’ve been meaning to watch Titanic again. Every now and then, I’m overcome with the desire to see it because it is mushy and lovey-dovey. What do you think? Was the tearjerker the one she should have taken home the Oscar for?

If she wasn’t cast in The Reader, I wonder what the Academy voters would have done. After all, Nicole Kidman was originally set to star in that role…